this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2025
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I did not realize this was a thing until I just switched to AZERTY which... despite being marketed as being "similar" to QWERTY, is still tripping me up

Edit: since this came up twice: I'm switching since I'm relocating to the French-speaking part of the world & I just happened to want to learn the language/culture, so yeah

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[–] Wizard_Pope@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago

QWERTZ with Slovene/Croatian letters

[–] 18107@aussie.zone 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Plover. I'm still not any good at it.

[–] cassowary@lemm.ee 1 points 6 days ago

I know that feeling.

[–] PonyOfWar@pawb.social 41 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (6 children)

QWERTZ, which is just the standard layout for Germany. It switches out Y and Z, adds Umlauts and changes the positions of various special characters.

I'm curious, what made you switch to AZERTY?

[–] Rednax@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago

It is so similar to QUERTY, that I just shrugged when I accidentally ordered the wrong 15 euro keyboard. So technically I also use QUERTZ, but I still tell my PC it is a QUERTY keyboard. Fun times when someone attempts to use my PC and gets confused.

[–] zlatiah@lemmy.world 17 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Moving to Belgium for a new job so...

[–] reallyzen@lemmy.ml 12 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Belgian AZERTY has the @ on a different key than the French one. No, don't ask.

[–] zlatiah@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yup... I had a suspicion that the Belgian system will somehow be different, so thankfully I didn't find this out the hard way. I could have almost bricked my laptop login password that way...

Also it's the first time I had to use my right hand to type the Alt key which is so trippy

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[–] Humanius@lemmy.world 21 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (4 children)

AZERTY is not really about being similar to QWERTY. It's the French standard keyboard layout.
Similarly QWERTZ is the German standard keyboard layout.

Most (European?) countries use some variation of QWERTY with the symbols and special characters moved around to fit their respective languages better. Over here in the Netherlands we are a bit of an outlier in the sense that we use the US layout of QWERTY, but with additional modifier keys to make special characters available (It's called US International)

There is also niche layouts like DVORAK (optimized layout for English) and BÉPO (optimized layout for French).

What is the reason you switched to AZERTY, if I may ask? I'm quite curious.

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[–] maxprime@lemmy.ml 18 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I’ve always wanted to use DVORAK but just don’t have the time to learn something so large and new (to me) at this stage of life. Gotta pick your battles.

[–] Zarxrax@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Yeah, I remember being really interested in DVORAK when I was younger. But when it comes down to it, my typing speed is not really something that is holding back my productivity, so there is little benefit to be gained from switching.

[–] transientpunk@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 week ago

Typing speed isn't the only benefit to switching. Reduced finger and wrist movement have been a life saver for me

[–] maxprime@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 week ago

Yeah. If people stopped bugging me at work my productivity would 2x for sure.

Meanwhile my 110wpm on QWERTY is not exactly holding me back.

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[–] transientpunk@sh.itjust.works 15 points 1 week ago

I use Dvorak on a 36 key Corne.

I started developing Ulnar Tunnel due to having really bad typing form from never learning the correct way to type. I was never going to unlearn the horrible (but fast) typing form that I had been using for years, so I decided to completely relearn how to type from the ground up using a different key layout on a completely different keyboard layout. It was a long and arduous process, but now my wrist pain is completely gone, and my typing speed has recovered.

[–] mac@lemm.ee 14 points 1 week ago (3 children)

This Heatmap is why I made the switch to colmak-dh.

[–] Kissaki@feddit.org 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I think I will bind E to my spacebar.

[–] mac@lemm.ee 2 points 6 days ago

Lol yeah the spacebar is so much wasted real estate. Thats why ergo mech keyboards map it to a thumb cluster.

[–] Pirata@lemm.ee 8 points 1 week ago (4 children)

I think this makes sense for people who type only in English. If you type in other languages, this becomes way less relevant.

Not to mention the limitations in hardware.

[–] Ziggurat@jlai.lu 3 points 6 days ago

French has the bépo layout which applies the Dvorak methodology to French

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[–] heavydust@sh.itjust.works 11 points 1 week ago

I'm French but I'm a programmer. I fully switched to standard Colemak in 6 months. There was no difference between QWERTY and AZERTY to me and I had pain in my wrists. Colemak removed that pain in a few weeks and I still get to keep the standard shortcuts (Ctrl+C/V...) because some keys stay in the same place. It's annoying sometimes when you're learning but it's definitely worth it.

[–] dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Dvorak

I actually can't type in QWERTY anymore.

[–] RichieRich@lemmy.world 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

QWERTZ like any German. 🤷

[–] Kissaki@feddit.org 0 points 6 days ago

I thought German would be QUARZ. /s

[–] panathea@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Norman Layout

Settled on it after 2 years of Dvorak, 1 year of Colemak, and 1 month of Workman.

Though, I mainly use Plover stenography when I'm working, Norman for gaming, and Qwerty on mobile or as-needed (e.g. other people's computers or while taking notes on my iPad for D&D)

[–] nostradamnit@infosec.pub 9 points 1 week ago

Dvorak for more than 30 years, because at the time, it was the only reasonable alternative.

[–] rem26_art@fedia.io 9 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I've been using Dvorak for maybe like 5 years now. There's like a 2 or 3 day period whenever you're learning a new keyboard layout in which you can't type at all lmao. QWERTY or Dvorak or whatever. Just takes a bit for your brain to adjust.

The interesting thing is tho, if I sit down at a computer I don't use every day and start typing, I can type QWERTY no problem, but if I ever have to type QWERTY on my personal computer (lookin at you RDP), its really hard.

I've been meaning to try out a Colemak layout, since it tries to keep a lot of the common computer shortcuts in the same place. (Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V on Dvorak are in kind of an odd place and its a pain if you ever need to use them 1 handed, like if you're holding a tablet pen)

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[–] 404@lemmy.zip 8 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Colemak-DH on a Corne (42, chocs).

Hello !ergomechkeyboards@lemmy.world :)

Been eyeing graphite though. Might make the switch over the summer when there is less workload.

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[–] neidu3@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Standard US Dvorak, but with the modification of using Caps Lock as Compose key so that I can type øæåØÆÅ when I need to.

I made the switch in 2011, but I never bought into the typing-speed claim. Typing speed be damned, it's just so much more comfortable this way.

Background:
I grew up with scandinavian keyboard layout in the 90s, but then two things happened almost at the same time:

  • I fucked up my msdos config, resulting in me having to use the default US layout
  • I became interested in coding.
    It didn't take long to notice how much better US layout is once you need access to {, }, and @, so I became familiar with it. For a long time I swapped bac and forth depending on what I was doing. Then one day around the time when Walter White blew up Gustavo Fring it dawned on me out of the blue that qwerty was somewhat cumbersome, and I would most likely be using a keyboard recreationally and professionally for the rest of my life, so I might as well try to see if I could get used to something more comfortable.

Downside: Took me a while to get used to it. 6 months or so. A little more than that and my typing speed was up to what it used to be.
Upsides: More comfortable, Nobody wants to borrow my computer, and shoulder surfers have NFI what my password is based on what I'm typing.

[–] schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 1 week ago

QWERTZ because I've been living my whole life in Austria and this was always the default. Every time something is set to QWERTY (and my keyboard is still physically QWERTZ), I have no idea where most of the special characters are and have to mash the keyboard in order to find them. I know @ is shift-2 and / is to the left of the right shift key, but most of the others, uh...

[–] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

I use Colemak, but just learned about Colemak-DH in this thread, I might give that a try, as the hjkl keys seem to be better positioned and have been trying to get back to vim.

[–] Kennystillalive@feddit.org 6 points 1 week ago

I use QWERTZ the Swiss version. (It's not optimal as it has to accomodate 3 languages)

[–] Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 week ago (2 children)
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[–] Photuris@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 week ago

Dvorak for over 25 years.

[–] ECB@feddit.org 4 points 1 week ago

It's technically a QWERTY-variant, but I use EurKey

[–] Walk_blesseD@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 1 week ago (4 children)
[–] Kissaki@feddit.org 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

What do all these interesting pictogram keys do?

The ringed planet is escape, the crescent is tab, the five-pointed stars are ctrl, the eye is super, and the sparkles are backspace.

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[–] ninjaturtle@lemmy.today 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Colemak. Fingers move around less than QWERTY.

[–] lambdabeta@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 week ago

Dvorak with caps lock as a dead key here. No programmer's Dvorak despite being a programmer... Never quite made the leap

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